The Mariners had their first spring training exhibition game yesterday, and they dramatically defeated the San Diego Padres in ten innings, 13-12. Since it was the first M’s game in five months, nobody complained about the 3:38 time of game.

The Mariners were trailing 12-10 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning when Carlos Peguero hit a two-run home run to tie the game. Peguero is a name to know – I haven’t written about the outfield candidates for the 2011 Tacoma Rainiers yet, but he will be on the list. He’s got real power – I saw him launch two home runs in minor league spring training games last year, and I was only there for four days.

(Yes, I am going to spring training again this year, but not until March 25. To get the most value out of my visit, I need to go near the end of camp, when we have a better idea who is going to be on the Tacoma roster. I will, of course, write about it while I am down there).

Peguero threw out the go-ahead runner at home plate in the top of the tenth, and Josh Bard won it with a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the inning.

Talk about announcing your presence with authority. The Mariners new coaching staff probably had no idea who Carlos Peguero was before yesterday. Now, they are intrigued!

Even though Peguero has little chance of making the Mariners opening day roster, performances like yesterday’s can help him earn a promotion to Triple-A. Eric Wedge and his staff might become impressed enough to say “Let’s keep Peguero nearby. Put him in Tacoma.”

Other potential Rainiers had good games: Mike Carp, my spring training sleeper (see previous post), went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBI. He played first base, though, and there isn’t room for him on the roster at that position. We all know Matt Mangini can hit, and he went 2-for-3 with a pair of singles. Mangini played third base.

Pitchers Yusmeiro Petit and Chris Smith, both possible Rainiers, worked scoreless innings. Reliever Danny Bautista had a rough outing, surrendering a grand slam and five runs in less than an inning. Bautista is one of the hard-throwing veterans with an outside chance of making the M’s roster, so that was a tough debut for him.

Shannon Drayer wrote a solid feature on Blake Beavan, who is a good candidate to be the Tacoma Rainiers opening day starting pitcher.

Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing explains why he thinks Dustin Ackley and Michael Pineda will open the season with Tacoma. Hint: it has nothing to do with performance.

Former and potential Rainiers pitcher Robert Rohrbaugh is about to start a crucial spring training. In this story from York, PA, notice the photos – he has to work out in a gym full of basketball players.

The Mariners apparently are close to signing longtime holdout James Paxton, a left-handed pitcher who has been playing Scott Boras games. At one time, he had a lot of potential. Does he still?

Former Rainiers infielder Luis Valbuena is trying to solidify a spot in the Cleveland Indians starting lineup. This could be a make-or-break spring for him.

Hall of Fame outfielder Duke Snider passed away at age 84. Here is his New York Times obituary. I noticed he was living in Escondido, where the PCL is hoping to add a team for 2013.

Baseball Prospectus minor league guru Kevin Goldstein posted his Top 101 Prospects list, and it’s free. He has a bit of a different take: he ranks Pineda #24, Ackley #25, Nick Franklin #44, and teenage slugger Guillermo Pimentel sneaks in there at #96.

One of the key players for the Minnesota Twins is out of action because of a wart. I link to this for one reason: when we started this blog, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would ever type the word “wart.” Not even in a link to this guy.

It would be nice if it would stop snowing in Tacoma, so we could really get into the baseball frame of mind.

Continuing our sporadic look at players in Mariners spring training camp who have a chance to open the season with the Tacoma Rainiers, today we look at the corner infielders – first and third base.

The Mariners entered 2011 spring training with a plethora of candidates at these spots – particularly at third base. This is a little strange, because the major league spots are essentially determined: the Mariners are going to start Chone Figgins at third base, and Justin Smoak at first base. I don’t think the Mariners will carry a true backup at either position – the utility infielder will back up third base, and DH Jack Cust can play first base in a pinch.

There is a Triple-A logjam at third base. This is because the farm system has steadily advanced talented players to the Triple-A level:

Matt Tuiasosopo – has been up-and-down between Seattle and Tacoma the last two years; hasn’t been able to stick in Seattle. Tuiasosopo has one option year remaining, so if he doesn’t win a Mariners bench role he could find himself back in Tacoma.

Matt Mangini – one of the most improved players in the Mariners farm system, Mangini excelled in his first Triple-A season last year, eventually earning a September call-up. Mangini can hit – but, his defense needs work and he might be in line for a position change, to first base or left field. Mangini has three option years remaining.

Alex Liddi – the 22-year-old Italian had a good season at Class-AA West Tennessee and is due for a promotion – and I think he will get one, and be the Rainiers everyday third baseman.

So, if Liddi gets the job, what will they do with Tui and Mangini? That’s the big question. Tuiasosopo became more of a utility player last year – he saw time at third, second, and left field for Tacoma. Mangini might be forced to learn a new position as well.

First base is also a bit clogged.

Mike Carp is the incumbant. Carp is my spring training “sleeper” candidate to make a strong push for the Mariners opening day roster. He changed his hitting approach last year to generate more power, and hit 29 home runs. He decreased his body fat and became more agile. He learned to play left field and was acceptable out there by the end of the season. Reports are that he came to camp this spring 15-20 pounds lighter after working out all off-season. Carp is 24 years old and on the roster; he has one option year remaining.

Luis Jimenez is a minor-league masher that the Mariners signed to a Triple-A contract. Jimenez just won the home run crown in the highly competitive Venezuelan Winter League. He’s a thick, left-handed basher who would probably DH quite a bit if he ends up in Tacoma (that’s speculation by me – I really have no clue about his defensive skills).

Johan Limonta is the co-mayor of Jackson, Tennessee (along with Robert Rohrbaugh). A native of Cuba, the 27-year-old Limonta has played three full seasons at Class-AA, hitting roughly 300/375/470 during his time there. He joined the Rainiers for the Triple-A Championship Game last fall, after Smoak was called up. Limonta has flexibility – he has played a lot of corner outfield, as well as first base.

Liddi played 23 games at first base in Class-AA last year. Also in the mix is Nate Tenbrink – but my feeling is that Tenbrink will open the season at Jackson, and if he hits we’ll see him at some point in the summer.

Usually Tacoma manager Daren Brown fills his DH slot with his extra outfielder, but this year he may have to fill it with one of these corner infielders.

Links!

Geoff Baker wrote an excellent article on your probable 2011 Tacoma Rainiers third baseman, Alex Liddi. Liddi was born and raised in Italy; he’s hoping to become the first Italian-born major leaguer in over 50 years. If the Rainiers have both Liddi and Greg Halman, we will lead all of professional baseball in Europeans.

Here’s another story from Baker, this one on Rainiers catcher Adam Moore and his difficulty adjusting to major league pitching.

The News Tribune has a story on David Pauley, who is aiming for the Mariners #5 starter role.

Jason Churchill wrote a thorough draft preview, in which he looks at the candidates for the Mariners top selection (#2 overall), and also runs down some of the local draft-eligible high school and college talent.

In my time with the Tacoma Rainiers, we’ve had countless players promoted to the major leagues. But it’s not just players going to the show – the Seattle Mariners and other major league teams have hired away Rainiers ticket sellers, corporate sponsorship salesmen, scoreboard operators, a head groundskeeper, a concessions manager, an official scorer, an office manager – the list goes on. But, I’ve never seen this one before: the Fresno Grizzlies mascot was promoted to the big leagues. As someone who sees mascots every day for five months and has seen it all, let me tell you that this guy deserved it: the Fresno mascot was the only one in the PCL that would do something original and different every game that would make me laugh.

I could do a whole blog post on the people who play mascots. But instead, let’s just say that they are in a different crowd. I mean, these are people who want to dress up as Zinger The Acorn.

NFL draft expert Rob Rang wonders if Jake Locker will play baseball if the NFL owners lockout the players.

When I first started reading this story about a minor league hockey announcer going way, way over the edge, I figured it was an emotional young kid who was learning the ropes. Whoops! (I wonder if “Greasy little punk” will be the next “boom goes the dynamite”).

I ordered my scorebook today. I often get asked what type of scorebook I use, so let’s talk about it.

(Warning: this is some serious baseball-geek talk. It’s OK with me if you just skip ahead to the links.)

To keep score during the game for broadcast purposes, there are certain features that I require.

In the lineups section, I need the space to be large enough to fill in several additional names for when there are in-game changes. But I don’t need extra lines at the bottom; nine spots is fine.

The pitching chart needs to have space for a lot of pitchers. Sometimes a team will use six pitchers in a game – in fact, if Tony LaRussa (or his Triple-A doppelgänger Tony DeFrancesco) is managing, a team always uses six pitchers in a game.

The book needs to be able to handle multiple extra innings. Carrying an extra-inning game over to a second scoresheet is highly annoying – especially when you are trying to fill-in all the names during a 90-second commercial break.

The boxes need to be blank. I hate those scorebooks with the diamond in the background. Yuck.

The boxes need to be large enough for me to add additional details – for example, when there are runners on base I put a small notation in the corner stating where the runners are located after the play, which makes it easier to recap the game later in the broadcast.

I need room for a defensive chart. This is a broadcaster tool – something I can instantly glance at and check the name of the defensive player.

Space for notes. I need an area where I can write down any unusual occurrences, such as ejections or rain delays.

My scorebook needs enough pages for 170 games, to cover the regular season plus any playoffs, and a few extra pages for when I screw up and ink my lineups on the wrong side (happens at least twice a year). Being able to carry the whole season around in one book is huge – I can’t tell you how many times each broadcast I look back and consult a previous game.

Fortunately I don’t have this problem (knock on wood), but for certain PCL broadcasters it would really help if their scorebook was soda-proof. Spill a Pepsi on your scorebook in April? That stain will be there all season long.

I used to create my own scorebook each year, and have Kinko’s bind it for me, but then I realized that a major league announcer was marketing cheaper, better scorebooks specifically for broadcasters. So now I order my scorebook each season from Bob Carpenter’s website, www.BCScorebook.com.

Here is a look at my scoresheets from July 4 of last year, when 15,247 patriotic Salt Lake City residents gathered at Spring Mobile Ballpark to watch their local nine get hammered by your Tacoma Rainiers, along with an exemplary display of Michael Pineda Domination Time.

My scanner added all of those weird colors – the scorebook is actually white, as you would expect, and is sized at a standard 8.5 x 11.*

Ichiro reported to camp, and he was wearing a unique outfit. Here is an interesting recap of a two-hour TV interview Ichiro did in Japan – the parts about his game-winning hit in the 2009 World Baseball Classic are particularly good.

Jerry Brewer wrote a column about Justin Smoak, in which Smoak reveals that he likes to hunt, fish, and play baseball.

Geoff Baker took some cool video of Charlie Haeger’s knuckleball as a part of a camp round-up.

That’s it for today – tomorrow (sorry, delayed) Friday I plan to do a post on the corner infielders in the Seattle/Tacoma picture. In the meantime, have you downloaded the new Radiohead album yet? Yes? Well then, here are seven ways to listen to it.

* one of the keys to using the Bob Carpenter Scorebook is to skip past the first page. Bob’s “baseball resume” is on the inside of the front cover, and the last thing you want to see when you are sitting down to broadcast your billionth minor league game is the resume of a guy who’s been in the majors for 20 years.

We started our around-the-diamond look at possible 2011 Tacoma Rainiers players with the two most difficult positions to track, starting pitchers and relief pitchers.

Today, we do something much easier: a look at the catchers.

Seattle and Tacoma will each carry two catchers, there are four candidates, and we even have one definite assignment.

Mariners Catchers

Miguel Olivo

TBA

It’s a spring training battle to win the Mariners back-up catcher job. The candidates are Adam Moore, Josh Bard, and Chris Gimenez. The two who don’t make it will open the season in Tacoma.

Moore is the prospect, and he has the advantage of being on the Mariners 40-man roster (Bard and Gimenez are non-roster invitees), but he has not had success at the major league level yet.

Bard is much more experienced than Moore, and he’s considered to be a better receiver. Bard was in Seattle for the majority of last year and he knows the pitchers. He definitely has a shot at winning the job.

I’ve never seen Gimenez play, but I’ve read that he is not a defensive whiz. However, he can play multiple positions: he has experience in right field, left field, first base, and third base. This positional flexibility works to his advantage.

The easy decision would be to keep Moore in the majors, putting off any 40-man roster decisions until later in the season. Bard and Gimenez know that injuries happen at the catcher position, and one of them – if not both – will get called up eventually.

Today’s links:

The News Tribune’s Larry LaRue has a story on Dustin Ackley’s defense, and the coaching he is getting from Jack Wilson and Robby Thompson. Also, in the notes at the end, we learn that Mike Carp lost 15-20 pounds during the off-season.

More from LaRue on knuckleball pitcherCharlie Haeger, who is on the Seattle/Tacoma bubble during spring training. Also in this story is a note on outfield prospect Johermyn Chavez, who we’ll see in Tacoma eventually.

In the Everett Herald, Mariners beat writer Kirby Arnold has a couple of good ones today: a feature on potential Rainiers reliever Royce Ring, which led to a fun story about ballplayer’s cars.

Larry Stone continues his Florida Tour: today we have a story onDon Wakamatsu, and another onDon Zimmer and Casey Kotchman.

I cannot wait until the guys on the team see what’s happening when we check into our Las Vegas hotel on Memorial Day weekend: we are there the same weekend as Punk Rock Bowling – and our team hotel is right smack-dab in the middle of it! My goal: a photo of Daren Brown, Dwight Bernard and Alonzo Powell, sitting at the hotel bar, completely surrounded by people with gigantic, spiked & dyed mohawks.* This is going to be infinitely better than last year, when we shared the Reno hotel with a Justin Bieber concert. There is potential for an epic photo blog!

The Mariners have the #2 choice in the draft – a real opportunity to instantly acquire an impact player. Keith Law breaks down the potential #1 choices in his ESPN Insider column. All of us broadcasters are pulling for Bubba Starling!

The Mariners are bringing backKen Griffey Jr. as a “special consultant.” He’ll show up at spring training and the occasional game, assist with Mariners community programs, help schmooze corporate sponsors, and one report said “visit minor league affiliates.” Obviously if that last part ever happens, we’ll tell ya all about it – probably over and over again, to the point of annoyance!

“Special consultants” have been a part of baseball for a long time, John McGrath writes.

Steve Kelley writes that the first thing Griffey needs to do is apologize for the way it ended last year.

Jerry Brewer gives nine reasons why bringing back Griffey is a good idea (I think #7 is the real reason why they did it).

Let’s move to the field. Geoff Baker has a nice Mariners camp round-up, with some good photos and video of Dustin Ackley taking batting practice.

Here’s a blurb on knuckleball pitcherCharlie Haeger, who may make the Rainiers opening day roster.

Kirby Arnold has a note on potential Rainiers reliever Royce Ring, who reminds him of George Sherrill.

On his Florida Tour, Larry Stone stopped by Yankees camp and spoke with Jesus Montero – the Yankees top prospect that the Mariners nearly acquired in the Cliff Lee trade, before changing course and dealing with Texas instead.

The Kansas City Royals have the best farm system in baseball, and Omaha World-Herald baseball scribe Rob White runs down the players who might be in Omaha this year. Omaha visits Tacoma August 16-19 and should be loaded with top-tier talent by then.

Strange news coming out of Oklahoma City, where the new team management is a) changing the name of the stadium from Bricktown Ballpark to RedHawks Ballpark, and b) tarping off a large section of seats in the PCL’s most beautiful stadium. Both moves are curious to me – this has been my favorite stadium in the league for the last 12 years; it’s going to have to be one beautiful tarp. (I can imagine how that telephone conversation went. RedHawks employee: “Hello, is this Tarps Unlimited? Excellent! I need to order a huge plastic tarp to cover 4,000 seats, but you see, we play in the most beautiful ballpark in the PCL, so we need this giant piece of plastic to… you know… not be hideously ugly. Can you do that?” – silence, click; dialtone.)

Here’s an early preview on the Albuquerque Isotopes from The New Mexican, with quotes from manager Lorenzo Bundy.

I swear I’m not linking to this just because he’s the boss – a Q&A with Rainiers presidentAaron Artman. I wish I could add some questions, such as “Bon Jovi? Really?”

Upcoming, we look at the Tacoma catching situation on Friday. Also, I’m scheduled for a stadium visit (to measure counter-space in my new booth – exciting!) sometime next week, so I’ll perform some more amateur photography when that happens.

Today we take a look at the possible Rainiers relief pitchers for 2011. We did the starting pitchers last week – scroll down if you missed it.

Once again, we start with Seattle. In recent years, the Mariners have carried 12 pitchers – five starters, and seven relievers. We’ll assume that they will continue down that road.

Mariners Bullpen

David Aardsma (out until late April)

Brandon League

Garrett Olson (out of options, so he figures to make it)

(open)

(open)

(open)

(open)

Golly, that’s a lot of open bullpen slots! That’s why the Mariners have been signing relief pitchers to minor league contracts all winter long, and inviting them to spring training.

Non-Roster Relievers Invited To Camp

Manny Delcarmen

Chris Ray

Denny Bautista

Justin Miller

Royce Ring

Chris Smith

Chris Seddon

Jamey Wright

But wait, there’s more. The M’s also have younger players who are on the 40-man roster who will compete for major league bullpen spots:

Relief Prospects In The Mix For Seattle

Dan Cortes

Josh Lueke

Cesar Jimenez (out of options)

Jose Flores (Rule 5 selection – unlikely to join Tacoma)

Edward Paredes

At this point, trying to determine which of the above players will be on Tacoma’s opening day roster is a fool’s errand. In fact, I’m only willing to commit to one Tacoma reliever right now:

Tacoma Bullpen

Scott Patterson

through 7. – TBD

Finally, we cannot forget about the guys who did well at Class-AA and are candidates for promotion to Triple-A:

Josh Fields – former first-round pick

Nick Hill – military lefty

Mumba Rivera – always a candidate; throws hard

Robert Rohrbaugh – co-mayor of Jackson, TN (with Johan Limonta)

It’s a mess right now. We’ll get some clarity by… I don’t know, late March or so?

Next up, a much easier position: catchers.

Spring training links:

The News Tribune has come out swinging with big features this week. Yesterday we had Ryan Divish’s magnum opus on Eric Wedge (link in yesterday’s blog), and today Larry LaRue has one on Josh Lueke – in which he asks all the questions, and lets the reader decide.

Speaking of Divish, he decided that Valentine’s Day is a clear #2 to the start of spring training. Comment withheld (too easy).

In last week’s run-down of the Mariners and Rainiers starting pitching candidates, I suggested that counting on Erik Bedard to hold down a spot was illogical. Well, he’s had four successful bullpen sessions already.

One of the 2010 Rainiers who left as a free agent is pitcher Ryan Feierabend. Larry Stone of the Seattle Times opened his tour of Florida spring training camps at the Phillies compound, and he talked to Feierabend at length. Some good stuff here, along with photos of the Phillies Big Four (the real reason Stone opened his tour with the Phillies).

Steve Kelly has a column about potential Rainiers starting pitcher Nate Robertson. Robertson is a strong candidate to make the Mariners, but if he doesn’t, we’ll happily take him.

More from the Seattle Times, a story about David Aardsma’s hip injury, and who might be the closer while “The D.A.” is out.

From the Everett Herald, Kirby Arnold has some colorful tidbits, including sage advice about where not to stand when you are a baseball journalist.

In Las Vegas, you can’t tell the stadium proposals without a scorecard. Sadly, only one of the proposals includes a Triple-A ballpark.

The poor folks who follow my personal twitter account know that I’m a rather enthusiastic (OK, annoying) follower of my alma mater’s sports programs. I try to keep that off this blog, but I must link to the Cal Baseball Reinstatement Rap. I feel OK doing this here – Peter Gammons linked to it, so it must be allowed. On that subject, it’s absolutely ridiculous that a major university is eliminating a baseball program that is over 100 years old, won the first College World Series, and is currently nationally ranked – and a program that churns out high draft choices every year. College baseball isn’t even fully scholarshipped – schools are limited to 11.7 scholarships for a 30-man roster. Team travel is costly, for sure, but I’m having trouble coming up with additional large expenses (aluminum bats, fans return foul balls, and at Cal they don’t have to pay an electricity bill for stadium lights, since they have none). I won’t even comment on the list of obscure sports programs they are keeping – other than to say that the baseball program is preparing and sending students into professional careers. How many of the so-called “Olympic sports” are doing that?

Seattle Mariners pitchers and catchers reported to the Peoria, Arizona compound today. Day One is simple: move into your locker, and take a thorough physical.*

The pitchers will begin throwing bullpen sessions tomorrow – which is why the catchers have to report early, too.

The start of spring training means that the reporters have something to write about. There are a ton of Mariners stories out there today. Let’s get to ‘em:

Ryan Divish of The News Tribune set the modern record for Longest Story On The First Day Of Spring Training, with this opus on new Mariners manager Eric Wedge. Ryan talked to Wedge’s wife, high school coach, college coach, former boss, peers – this is an excellent feature, and it would be a good idea for Mariners players to read it.

Also at The News Tribune, John McGrath pronounces today a holy day – and then he rehashes the Mariners decidedly unholy recent history of catching prospects.

At the Times, Geoff Baker’s spring preview story focuses on the Mariners hopes to improve the offense.

More from the Times: award-winning national baseball scribe Larry Stone takes a look at the big stories in MLB entering 2011.

Mariners closer David Aardsma, recovering from hip surgery, is two weeks away from being able to throw.

If you follow college baseball, here’s Baseball America’s Pac-10 Preview (subscription required). They have UCLA predicted to win it – the Bruins are #2 in their pre-season Top-25. The conference is ridiculously strong: UCLA, ASU, Stanford, Oregon, Cal and Arizona are all in the Top-20.